Latest posts from Science

Today wan’t perfect. I had to throw out two students. But it was a great day simply because I have amazing students. I sometimes complain. I sometimes post something terrible that happened at work on facebook to make light of the situation or entertain my loved ones. But really that doesn’t accurately represent how very much I…

I have had some proud moments with my kids in the past week or so. Why? Yesterday, as my students in 1B were building solar ovens, one student, with his hands full of plastic wrap and working together with two other people to try to get the plastic wrap to go around their oven just…

…Or, Kids Really DO Say the Darndest Things! I’ve been creating this lovely little collection over the past few months. Mostly, it is my students making fun of me. : ) I know I haven’t had one in a while but, it’s a nice lighthearted change of pace from my sometimes heavy posts. Post about…

As a recently accepted 2014 Corps Member I have not had to look far to find TFA critics. When I was a prospective applicant trying to research the organization, I could not get past all of the articles, sob stories, and blogs to find the information that I wanted. Therefore, instead of ignoring them I…

Last year nearly 30 students earned failing grades in my class. And they all failed Physical Science and will need to retake it in order to graduate. Some of them are in my classes again this year. Most of them are doing better. I have watched closely and I don’t think they are doing better…

Today, I found out that for one of my students, if he can hang on two and half more years, he will be the first in his family to graduate high school. Not the first to graduate college, not even the first to go to college, but the first to graduate high school. The news…

In the teacher-world there is saying that October is the worst month. You’re just getting out of that “honey-mooning” phase, it’s the beginning of a new term, kids are restless, teachers are tired, and let’s face it: October is just plain LONG and meanwhile Thanksgiving and Christmas still seem a world away. So is it…

This week, I saw students who were truly proud of themselves because of a piece of paper. They analyzed their data, revised their hypothesis about their planes, and re-built them in hopes of their new designs flying further. We ran a final test and declared the “winner”. The morning of our final tests I came…

For me, the hardest part of teaching is not the planning, the behavior management, the discipline, the administration or any of the typical teacher complaints. The hardest part is getting to know my students, seeing how smart and how much potential they have, but then also how behind they are academically. I teach 11th graders,…

This past week (although short) was crazy in Room 116. We are becoming designers and engineers and this week my students were designing and building their very own paper air planes. Basically, I spent the week frantically shuffling from group to group helping them interpret their research articles, asking them to revise their hypothesis over…